Wednesday, 18 March 2015

[Disclaimer: This was written the day after the event, and I took no notes. If I have misrepresented the opinions of any of the panel members then it is a result of my poor attention during, and poor memory following, the debate. My apologies to those involved if this is the case.]

For those that
weren't aware, UCL hosted a talk and debate last night entitled “Is Science
Broken? If so, how can we fix it?” Chris Chambers (@chriscd77) gave a talk
about the recent introduction of Registered Reports in the journal Cortex. This
was followed by a broader panel discussion on the problems facing science (and
psychology in particular) and how initiatives, such as pre-registration, might
be able to improve things. Alongside Chris, Dorothy Bishop (@deevybee), Sam
Schwarzkopf (@sampendu), Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) and Sophie Scott
(@sophiescott) took part in the debate, and David Shanks chaired.

First, I found
Chris’ talk very informative and measured. Words such as “evangelist” are often
bandied about on social media. Personally, I found him to be passionate about
pre-registration but very realistic and honest about how pre-registration fits
into the broader movement of “improving science”. He spend at least half of his
talk answering questions that he has received following similar presentations
over the last few months. I would guess about 90% of these questions were
essentially logistical – “will I be able to submit elsewhere once I've
collected the results?”, “couldn't a reviewer scoop my idea and publish whilst
I’m data collecting?” It is obviously incumbent upon Chris, given he has
introduced a new journal format, to answer these legitimate logistical
questions clearly. I think he did a great job in this regard. I can’t help feeling
some of these questions come from individuals who are actually ideologically
opposed to the idea, trying to bring about death by a thousand cuts. Often
these questions implicitly compare pre-registration to an “ideal” scenario,
rather than to the current status quo. As a result, I feel Chris has to point
out that their concern applies equally to the current publishing model. I may
just be misreading, but if people are ideologically opposed to pre-registration
I’d rather they just come out and say it instead of raising a million and one
small logistical concerns.

On to the
debate. This worked really well. It is rare to get five well-informed
individuals on the same stage talking openly about science. There was a lot of
common ground. First, everyone agreed there should be more sharing of data
between labs (though the specifics of this weren't discussed in detail, so
there may have been disagreement on how to go about doing this). Dorothy also
raised legitimate ethical concerns about how to anonymise patient data to allow
for data sharing. There was also common ground in relation to replication,
though Chris and Neuroskeptic both cautioned against only replicating
within-lab, and pushed for more between-lab replication efforts, relative to
Sophie.

Where I think
there was disagreement was in relation to the structures that we put in place
to encourage good practice (or discourage bad practice). On several occasions
Chris asked how we were going to ensure scientists do what they should be doing
(replicating, data sharing, not p-hacking etc.). Essentially it boils down to
how much scope we give individual scientists to do what they want to do.
Pre-registration binds scientists (once the initial review process has been
accepted) to perform an experiment in a very specific way and to perform specific
statistics on the data collected. This should (though we need data, as pointed
out by both Chris and Sam) decrease the prevalence of certain issues, such as
p-hacking or the file drawer problem. You can’t get away from the fact that it
is a way of controlling scientists though. I think some people find that
uncomfortable, and to a certain extent I can understand why. However, what is key to pre-registration is that
it is the scientists themselves who are binding their own hands. It is masochistic
rather than sadistic. Chris isn't telling any individual scientist how to run
their experiment, he is simply asking scientists to clearly state what they are
going to do before they do it. Given the huge multivariate datasets we collect
in cognitive neuroscience, giving individuals a little less wiggle room is
probably a good thing.

Sophie pointed
out at the beginning of the debate that science isn't measured in individual
papers. In one hundred years no-one will remember what we did, let alone that
specific paper we published in Nature or Neuron (or Cortex). This is a reasonable
point, but I couldn't quite see how it undermined the introduction of formats
such as pre-registration. I don’t think anyone would claim a pre-registered
paper is “truth”. The success (or failure) of pre-registration will be measured
across hundreds of papers. The “unit” of science doesn't change as a result of
pre-registration.

Where I found
common ground with Sophie was in her emphasis on individual people rather than
structures (e.g., specific journal formats). Certainly, we need to get the
correct structures in place to ensure we are producing reliable replicable
results. However, whilst discussing these structural changes we should never
lose sight of the fact that science progresses because of the amazingly
talented, enthusiastic, nerdy, focussed, well-intentioned, honest, funny, weird,
clever people who design the experiments, collect the data, run the statistics
and write the papers. The debate wonderfully underlined this point. We had
five individuals (and a great audience) all arguing passionately about science. It is that raw
enthusiasm that gives me hope about the future of science more than any change
in journal format.

Monday, 16 March 2015

A brief list of things I have learnt in the space of less than a week:

Looking after your child on a daily basis is tiring. One day, it's a doddle. However, several consecutive days on your own and it starts to get to you. Both my wife and I have been shattered this last week. She has been adjusting to life back at work and I have been adjusting to the life of a full time carer. Hopefully we'll have a bit more energy this week and not have to go to bed at 9pm every night.

You're constantly thinking several hours ahead. When should I feed next, is it time for a nap, if I go for a walk now will she fall asleep and therefore not nap at home? Get your timings right and everything works wonderfully. Get them wrong and you end up spending 6 hours straight with a grumpy baby and no backup to help you out.

Trips to the shops are now the best thing ever. You get out the house and your child gets some fresh air and visual stimulation. Even if it's just walking down the road to buy some milk it can break up an afternoon into two more manageable chunks of time.

Don't sit down and have a cup of tea at the start of a nap. Before I knew it about an hour had gone by and I had been staring at the ceiling. I try to get straight on the computer so I can at least catch up on a few emails (whilst drinking my tea). That way I feel I haven't completely wasted my free time.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Today I am back on paternity
leave. My daughter is nine months old and my wife has returned to work. Rather
than send our daughter straight to nursery, we thought it might be a good idea
if I look after her full time for a month. We have done this for several reasons,
which I will explain below. I had toyed with the idea of taking time off for a while (in addition to the paternity leave I took immediately
after she was born), but it was a chance meeting at a conference dinner that
really got me thinking. I was chatting to a lecturer who had returned to work
following maternity leave, and she was explaining how her husband was taking 3
months of paternity leave. I explained I would like to do something similar,
but given I’m currently a postdoc who is thinking about future jobs and perhaps
needs a few more publications under his belt it wasn't the best timing for me.
This was obviously crap, and luckily she called me out on it. There is never a “convenient”
time to take paternity/maternity leave. There will always be an excuse. Since
then the plan has been relatively set in stone, at least in my mind.

So, why take leave now? First, because
I want to. I want to experience at least a small part of what my wife has been
through the past nine months. It won’t be the same, it will be easier for me,
but it will be close enough. More importantly, I want to spend more time with
my daughter when she is still a baby. Second, because I can. I have an
understanding boss and work in a supportive department. I may not be in this
situation again so I should take these opportunities when they present
themselves. Third, because it makes financial sense. Rather than take official
paternity leave, I’m essentially taking all my annual leave in one go. I don’t
think I have ever used up my allotted annual leave in a year. Most academics
probably don’t. For this year at least that is what I am doing. This means,
after a few months of statutory pay, my wife and I will both be on full pay for
a month without nursery costs. This will help a lot. It would not have been
financially viable for me to take official paternity leave, and therefore not be
paid during this time, as we would not have had enough income between the two
of us to cope. Fourth, because going back to work after nine months of
maternity leave is a big deal, and having to cope with the emotion of leaving
your child at the nursery seems like quite a lot to handle all at once. This
way my wife can be at work knowing I’m looking after our daughter, at least for
a few weeks.

Finally, because more men need to
take time off work and look after their kids. I've had very mixed reactions to
taking (only) one month off. Some have sounded shocked, others have asked what
I’m going to do with my time (answer: look after my daughter). It’s that mix of
reactions that made me realise it was the right thing to do on top of all the
personal reasons listed above. If it’s still a shock that a man might take time
off work to look after their child (and I reiterate, it is only one month so it
really isn't that significant) then we live in a pretty weird society.

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

A recent article in Nature nicely highlighted some of the difficulties associated with juggling both work
and parenting responsibilities whilst trying to maintain some semblance of a
social life. Needless to say, it isn’t easy. Whilst I found the article to be
an honest and frank assessment of the trials and tribulations of parenthood and
academia, I couldn’t help feeling that part of the discussion was missing.

We are introduced to several
research active scientists who plan weeks ahead, call on
friends/colleagues/parents to help with child care, work into the evening once
their child has gone to bed, all in the quest to maintain their pre-child
levels of work. For instance, during maternity/paternity leave one couple
“planned to use [their child’s] nap times and evenings at home to work on data
analysis, manuscripts and grant proposals”. Another example tells of how the
“couple typically works side-by-side in their home office for three to four
hours” after they have put their daughter to bed.

It’s great that these individuals
are managing to find time to be a parent and be productive at the same time –
although their social life seems to have suffered somewhat. However, my issue
with the whole article is it presents two options (1) maintain previous work
patterns and be a bad parent or (2) change work patterns but maintain the same
working hours and be a good parent. At no point is the concept of working fewer
hours brought in for consideration. I’m not saying this is the correct
solution, but surely it is a viable option? Everyone agrees that academics can
work long hours, reviewing papers in the evening, spending all night finishing
a grant application, collecting data on the weekend. Given this common
agreement, why is it not remotely conceivable that one might want to cut down
on these hours once one has a child?

My issue with a lot of articles
on “work-life balance” is actually that exact phrase. The word “balance” seems
too positive a term for what is essentially a decision about what to sacrifice
in your life. The above examples from the piece in Nature have, although not
explicitly stated, sacrificed their social life in order to maintain work hours
whilst spending time with their children. That’s fine, but this sacrifice
should be explicitly acknowledged. Personally, I work slightly fewer hours than
I used to (trying to be more productive with those hours I am in the office)
and go out with friends a lot less. I have also sacrificed any time to myself
in the evening. Once my child is asleep I spend time with my wife, as we rarely
get time alone during the day. I consider this a relatively “balanced” life
considering how much upheaval a baby causes in one’s life, but I have had to
sacrifice quite a bit to reach that balance.

The point I am trying to make is
that a lot of talk about “balance” is directed towards cramming more stuff into
the same number of hours. Instead I think we should talk more openly about what
is and what isn’t important. What we can give up and what we need to maintain.
Only then should we discuss how we can use the finite number of hours allotted to
us to carry out the tasks that we have prioritised.